One of the things that makes me most sad about these new packaged reading curriculum (and so so much makes me sad) is the way it feels as if we have switched from teaching children to training children. And we can do that, we can make it work, but it is costing us (and our students) so very much.

I’ve been feeling so sad at the loss of freedom to craft curriculum in a way that allows us to cover standards while also guiding students towards compassion, critical thinking & justice. So I’m trying to find other ways to do that work. With that, I’m committing to a focus on care this new year.

Every year, on New Year’s Eve, I pick a poem to carry with me into the new year. It’s a way for me to set some intention on what I want this new year to be. This year, my poem for the new year is Joy Harjo’s “For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in Its Human Feet.” Here’s to 2026.

Holding on to justice and liberation in the classroom right now feels like trying to light a candle outside on a really windy day. And the lighter, it’s running low on fuel, y’all. And I guess we just keep on going. Trying to light the fire in whatever ways we can. That’s all.

Today I filled my shelves with workbooks. And my heart is just so sad at what teaching and learning have become.

I’d be curious to know how many people at the large national teacher conferences are classroom teachers. It just seems like such a far away world to what’s happening in our classrooms these days.

I think about what we, as educators, will say in years from now when we are asked, “How did you help kids through the crisis when human beings were being dragged off the streets by masked folks with guns?” For some of us the answer is sadly going to be, “Oh. We doubled down on phonics instruction.”

This year the letter home about Halloween costumes and ways to help us ensure they are not harmful, feels particularly important. Teachers, please feel free to use in whatever ways feel helpful! docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Teachers: DO NOT DEBATE ICE IN YOUR CLASSROOM! To ask students to witness their own humanity and safety being debated by their classmates is harmful. This is a reality that is causing harm and fear and pain to so many young people.

What they are asking us to do is not teaching. It is moving through curriculum. And I fear for what that means for our students.

Yes, there is good reason to be deeply concerned about what is happening in our schools. But no, it is not because of our test scores.

We hope you’ll join us in the work of building toolkits that help us create LGBTQ-affirming schools. Register today to secure your spot! 2/2 #IREL25

We can’t imagine moving through the world of education without the light that Jess consistently provides for children, families, and communities. Now more than ever we need this light and each other. 1/2

The school year has started and I find myself already in desperate need of the kind of community rooted in justice and liberation. I am so grateful that @sonjacherrypaul.bsky.social and @triciaebarvia.bsky.social are bringing us back together again for another Teaching Towards Freedom.

Y’all. I’m trying something new this year. I am going to completely ignore the start of the school year. Until it arrives. I’m going to hold on to summer until it is gone. I’m going to welcome my students with a big open heart and a lot of love and whatever I can plan in the time I’m given.

How you know back to school time is right around the corner…

I’m running a PD in a few weeks where we are using Dr. Barbara J Love’s framework for developing a liberatory consciousness as we center the stories of young people talking about their school experiences and how those experiences were impacting by various facets of identity.

For two decades now, I have worked with my fifth grade colleagues to build a literacy curriculum that weaves together reading and writing instruction with the kind of work that helps kids understand the ways in which we can use reading and writing to create positive change in the world.

There’s still time to register: TheIREL.org

These three women are writing dissents like our lives depend on it. I’m grateful for their work documenting the severity of the crises of this moment.

Today, the anger came first. In response to a myriad of Supreme Court decisions released today, and in particular on the case involving LGBTQ+ related books in public schools, I feel the anger really strongly. Clearly. And that anger is justified.

Small bits of hope, friends. Small bits of hope.

Help needed! I’m running a workshop focusing on helping a group of mostly straight, cisgender, white educators better understand the impact school has on marginalized young people. I’m looking for voices of marginalized young people sharing school experiences in writing, video, podcast, etc.

Don’t show me you are an educator who supports LGBTQ+ students by posting a statement on social media. Show me by reading books with your students with LGBTQ+ people and by interrupting homophobic hate speech every single time you hear it and by weaving LGBTQ+ people into your instruction.

This year, for teacher appreciation week, maybe we can have less coffee mugs and candles and instead have more speaking up. Speak up to defend public education…

A beautiful response in the face of hate.

Does anyone else feel like our schools are becoming places with less and less joy? Places that are just harder and sadder to exist in? Is it testing season? Or is it something more?

Oh, this day. Dismantling of the Department of Education. And. The district I teach in is about to adopt a packaged literacy curriculum that is known for lacking cultural responsiveness. I am so worried about what happens next in our schools and for our students and for our teachers.

This week, my district made the decision of which scripted, packaged literacy program we will be purchasing for next year. After spending 20 years building a literacy curriculum I am so proud of, next year I’ll be reading out of a workbook. I don’t know how we keep doing this, friends.

I voted against more chaos. I voted against more cuts. I voted against giving a wannabe king and an unelected billionaire even more power to hurt middle-class Americans. I serve Illinoisans. Republicans made it clear they serve Donald Trump.

Grateful for @duckworth.senate.gov and so angry and disappointed with Duck Durbin.

Grateful for our teacher unions. Grateful for AFT and the work they are doing on behalf of all teachers and students. There are good people, doing good work to help calm the absolute chaos. They are who I keep looking for and looking toward. www.aft.org/press-releas...

As we make calls to senators & reps, I think we also need to write to our local school boards to demand a continued commitment to DEI work. I know that will look different in different states, but here is what I sent to my daughter’s school board here in IL: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

Oh, teacher friends. It’s a whole new level of conversation that is needed with our young people. Today while trying to navigate a really harmful conversation between two kids, I had one student say, “But I heard the president say it!” And my heart just broke.

“Ordinary people, all the time, are engaging in pretty heroic activities that are actually changing the world – and those deserve some notice and celebration as well.” This is an article from 2019, but, oh, what an important time it is right now to read it. www.bbc.com/future/artic...

Everything is so bad. And it all hurts my heart. And I feel like I can’t breathe a lot of the moments of the day. And. Today, we had kids cheering for books. And theycheered for a book that celebrates diversity and love. And I have to hold on to that, too.

For educators committed to social justice, today it feels like drowning. crawlingoutoftheclassroom.wordpress.com/2025/01/30/t...

Well, it’s been nearly four years. But today has brought my back to the blog. I think it’s an attempt to find community. I think it’s an attempt not to drown. Friends, we are going to need each other. This is my reminder that I am still here. crawlingoutoftheclassroom.wordpress.com/2025/01/30/t...

Today makes me want to gather all the educators I know who are deeply and truly committed to social justice and put us all together in a room so that we can just feel that community and be strengthened by it.

This one. It just feels like such a gut punch. It makes it feel kind of hard to breathe. I’m trying to remember that an executive order is not law. And that we cannot “comply in advance.” But, my goodness, does this one make it all just feel impossible. www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

1. Breaking News: Donald Trump has signed an executive order targeting trans youth and teachers in schools who teach for them. It goes after "social transition" and threatens arrests. I will go through line by line, as I have the last 3 nights. Find the EO here: www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

When they make our anger the problem and not the injustice that causes it, it’s a convenient excuse for a system not to have to examine its own role in perpetuating that injustice. Stay angry, folks.

Harmful language connected to the first round of executive orders has already made it into our classrooms. As educators, we have to be ready to respond in a way that maintains a sense of safety, especially for those who are feeling most in danger in the spaces outside of our classrooms.

So I have had the luxury of two full weeks off of school. I know this is not true for all teachers. But on this last weekday off for me, I am realizing just how much we teachers need the full two weeks. The last few days before break were brutal for me.

In 2020, I started a new tradition for myself. On the last day of the year, I choose a poem to carry with me into the new year. It’s not a resolution, but a way to set an intention, to choose an energy to carry into the coming year. It is what my heart needs. And here is my poem to bring into 2025:

Winter break. The last few weeks of this school year have weighed so heavy on my heart. And now. In the quiet. It’s all hitting. Hard. Trying to breathe deeply. Trying to find the joy. Oh, friends. This job we do. It takes such a toll.

This was a two-book weekend! BLACK STAR by Kwame Alexander was just incredible. A perfect addition to our fifth grade classroom library. What a beautiful story filled with important history. I just loved this book!

It’s been a very long time since I read a whole book in one day. But We Still Belong by Christine Day was just so perfect. I cannot wait to share this book with my fifth graders. There’s just so much to love about it!

So grateful for the chance to breathe. A few days to surround myself with family and friends and rest and care. Goodness it is needed! Breathe deeply, teacher friends. Rest and restore in whatever ways possible.